lambda wrote: the difference between freebsd 5.x and linux 2.6 isn't all that great.

hmm...the results on that site suggested something else to me. anyways its your personal choice. can you elaborate on the point you made that bsd has a better overall system integration that linux. it it is so, howcome 2.6 excels freebsd??

umarfida wrote:salamDear Qadri-409There is more non professentional user's of linux than professentional one's in pakistan.e.g there are 9 ISP's working in faisalabad and most of them did not even know how to make a dialup in Linux.When i started using linux I go to thier's office's to check them which one is using linux.when i asked about problem's of linux at that time there first Q was. What did you do.then they simply say we do not use linux .Among them includs two leading ISP.One clames the best support service.They say we run mail service on linux we did not know how to make dialup we just power on that pc after that we did not even go near that pc.So when proffessentional say such thing's how can linux grow in pakistan.

UMAR FIDA

Dear Umer i agree with you most of the setups are once installed and are bieng looked after by the consultants same is the case here in peshawar.linux admins are hired as a consultant in public and private sectors most of the ISPs are like shops they don't care about there admins if they hire one, mostly don't hire on permenant basis.
they guyz there in most ISPs dealing with customer support like things can 't help you if you are using linux and want to connect to internet.

zaeemarshad wrote:can you elaborate on the point you made that bsd has a better overall system integration that linux. it it is so, howcome 2.6 excels freebsd??

you're comparing a complete operating system ("freebsd") with a kernel ("2.6"). system integration has little to do with performance. system integration in this case means all the config files in /etc, all binaries in /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, all the kernel code, and all the man pages, other document files, and example files are maintained by one group of developers and matches the code.

in fact, that is the best example i can give in favor of system integration. it is extremely rare to find a command in /bin or /usr/sbin or wherever that does not have a man page (and if you do, it's a reportable bug). any system calls added to the kernel and available to user apps in /usr/include/sys/*.h are documented. even system calls used in the kernel by kernel modules and drivers only are documented.

if i were to install freebsd on a pentium 4 box, i can, after the install, set the CPUTYPE to p4, and recompile the entire os with two commands, and reboot to the a system optimized for pentium 4 chips. you can't easily do this with most linux distributions (except maybe gentoo). upgrades work similarly -- even if you have an ancient freebsd 2.x box (circa 1995), you can upgrade it to 3.0, then 3.5, then 4.0, then 5.2.1 -- all without reinstalling.

lambda wrote:you're comparing a complete operating system ("freebsd") with a kernel ("2.6"). system integration has little to do with performance. system integration in this case means all the config files in /etc, all binaries in /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, all the kernel code, and all the man pages, other document files, and example files are maintained by one group of developers and matches the code.

in fact, that is the best example i can give in favor of system integration. it is extremely rare to find a command in /bin or /usr/sbin or wherever that does not have a man page (and if you do, it's a reportable bug). any system calls added to the kernel and available to user apps in /usr/include/sys/*.h are documented. even system calls used in the kernel by kernel modules and drivers only are documented.

FIrst the tests at the site you mentioned werent ran against a standalone kernel as far as i understand that. they were run against a complete OS and talking about upgrading, gentoo truly rocks. I think FreeBSD wont optimize every package for ia64 but gentoo does. Talking about system integration, it's really nice about *BSDs to document every call but as far as organizing of binaries and config is concerned, aint linux doing that?? Dont need to remind such an experienced person of that .

From an admin point of view, i am concerned with the performace of my system. A linux distro with a 2.6 kernel is "right now" better than a BSD. lets see when it changes. Right now as far as my understanding works, you wont like to move to the latest BSDs coz of their sluggish performace while linux admins are bound to move to 2.6 after its exhelling performance. I am looking forward to your insightful comments.

I have to agree with lambda on the documentation thing. The BSDs (at least FreeBSD and OpenBSD) simply rock in the man page department.

On a related note, lamba, is there any significant performance boost when optimizing compilation for a particular processor? I understand that core stuff like the kernel and glibc do make a difference (and thus have seperate packages in at least Fedora). I wonder how much difference I would see if I compile, let's say KDE, for my Athlon processor.

FIrst the tests at the site you mentioned werent ran against a standalone kernel as far as i understand that. they were run against a complete OS and talking about upgrading, gentoo truly rocks.

you misunderstood what i said. the tests did compare linux with freebsd, and focused entirely on kernel operations (networking, memory access, etc). i was talking about what you were comparing, not the tests. you said:

can you elaborate on the point you made that bsd has a better overall system integration that linux. it it is so, howcome 2.6 excels freebsd??

system integration has little to nothing to do with those tests. the 2.6 kernel is better (as shown in the tests) than freebsd's, but that's not because of freebsd's release management.

I think FreeBSD wont optimize every package for ia64 but gentoo does.

that's incorrect. why do you think that? it will optimize for ia64 or x86-64, just the same way that it'll optimize for a p4 or a k5.

Talking about system integration, it's really nice about *BSDs to document every call but as far as organizing of binaries and config is concerned, aint linux doing that??

actually, no. look through your /usr/sbin, and see how many of those programs have man pages. what about the rest? what good is organization when you can't figure out what a program does?

what if one of those utilities (which you may never use, which is on all your systems) has a security bug? suddenly, an app you're not aware of can be used to break into your system!

From an admin point of view, i am concerned with the performace of my system.

but that's not all you're concerned about, is it? i mean, if that were the case, most of your apps would be written in c, and not (say) php.

A linux distro with a 2.6 kernel is "right now" better than a BSD.

a linux 2.6 kernel is better than a freebsd kernel at some tasks. a linux distribution may or may not be better. certainly, i don't think linux distributions are better.

Right now as far as my understanding works, you wont like to move to the latest BSDs coz of their sluggish performace while linux admins are bound to move to 2.6 after its exhelling performance.

i will point out that you came into this as a linux user, and you've left as a linux user. i don't know where you got the impression that freebsd is sluggish -- the code tested at the url (which is eight months old, and from a previous release) beat linux 2.4 in performance. that's no easy feat.

the only way that you'll truly find out which one is better for you is to deploy your apps on both and see which one works better. anything else is speculation. it doesn't matter if linux 2.6 can fork faster than freebsd -- if you rarely fork. it doesn't matter if freebsd can handle more sockets than linux if you never have more than a few hundred simultaneous connections.

given my past experience with 2.4 and freebsd, i know freebsd works better under load, so yes, i'll stick with it.

fawad wrote:On a related note, lamba, is there any significant performance boost when optimizing compilation for a particular processor?

i haven't seen much of a difference on my athlon box, but i don't use it for much except compiling (it's faster than my desktop machine, but for various reasons i can't use it as a desktop). most of gcc's processor-specific optimizations weren't all that effective until gcc 3.3 came out.

i've heard that gcc -ffast-math might use the vector processing instructions (mmx/sse/sse2, 3dnow!/etc), but i haven't confirmed this. if -ffast-math does use those instructions, i'd expect to see a speedup for stuff like xine.

Boys the question is neither about the problems in linux nor about which one is best, about which one is easy, which one is latest. The Problem of growth of Linux in Pakistan are
1) Availability of various distributions.Linux is not easily available .I got my RD9 after a long hard straggle most of the cd, s I tried were courpted. The only other distribution available in Faisalabad in Mandrake 9.No one bother about spending RS 300 for purchasing Linux distribution from Karachi (PLUC) I got my RD9 for RS 75.Where one can get Win XP only for RS 35.No one download any Linux distribution (1900 MB) on internal modem.
2) Training (support) for Linux.You will hardly find any institution which is offering Linux training. I saw one banner in the city offering training in Linux 9. What is Linux 9? They did not know the basics of Linux. May be they were talking about RD9.Where as you can find countless institutions offering windows training. Is PLUC offering any sort of Linux training or held some seminars on Linux?
One of my friends brothers is doing M.Sc in computer sciences at Punjab University. He took Red hat 9 from me saying Punjab University is offering Linux training. I talked to him last night. He said to me that it is not started yet (4 month back he took cds) and may be university led down this course.
3) 1500 members at PLUC. Only 19 members poll at the topic. What are others doing? Are all of them beginners? I saw the members mailing list. I think almost 50% did not even post a single reply, or a single Question.
The question remains, how Linux grow in Pakistan.
One good thing at least we have a PLUC forum were pep can help beginners and each other.

Last edited by umarfida on Fri Aug 05, 2005 11:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

there is need of putting Linux in BSC ,BCS and in other Degreeslinux networks.Awareness among computer professionals ratjer computer literate i say

1) Availability of various distributions.Linux is not easily available .I got my RD9 after a long hard straggle most of the cd, s I tried were courpted. The only other distribution available in Faisalabad in Mandrake 9.No one bother about spending RS 300 for purchasing Linux distribution from Karachi (PLUC) I got my RD9 for RS 75.Where one can get Win XP only for RS 35.No one download any Linux distribution (1900 MB) on internal modem.I got linux very easily but faced few corrupt Cds now adays its short her ein peshawar 2) Training (support) for Linux.You will hardly find any institution which is offering Linux training. PLUC offering any sort of Linux training or held some seminars on Linux?One of my friends brothers is doing M.Sc in computer sciences at Punjab University. He took Red hat 9 from me saying Punjab University is offering Linux training. I talked to him last night. He said to me that it is not started yet (4 month back he took cds) and may be university led down this course.

yea her in peshawar a project of linux studies is offered by the govt but for the last two months they are unable to decide which institute should be selected .i bet the one who will bribe well will win

3) 1500 members at PLUC. Only 19 members poll at the topic. What are others doing? Are all of them beginners? I saw the members mailing list. I think almost 50% did not even post a single reply, or a single Question. The question remains, how Linux grow in Pakistan.One good thing at least we have a PLUC forum were pep can help beginners and each other.

Its nice to see that you are concerned about the state of opensource growth in our country but tell me what you can do. You cannot pull people out of their homes to attend PLUC meetings or force em to sit on their pcs staring at their screens and reading. ppl here dont want to work simply.

PLUC hosts meeting in karachi, isb and lahore as far as i know. Multan chapter sucks coz ppl here dont have the attitude. After years of working, you find ppl stuck at the basic stages. Even in those cities how many ppl regularly attend these meetings. Unfortunately, its the attitude thats the problem. Even if you have redhat 7.3 available, thats enuff to get started with all the servers and programming stuff.

Once our countrymen start to use their greymatter, things will change. My fingers are crossed.......

umarfida wrote:Boys the question is neither about the problems in linux nor about which one is best, about which one is easy, which one is latest. The Problem of growth of Linux in Pakistan are 1) Availability of various distributions.Linux is not easily available .I got my RD9 after a long hard straggle most of the cd, s I tried were courpted. The only other distribution available in Faisalabad in Mandrake 9.No one bother about spending RS 300 for purchasing Linux distribution from Karachi (PLUC) I got my RD9 for RS 75.Where one can get Win XP only for RS 35.No one download any Linux distribution (1900 MB) on internal modem.2) Training (support) for Linux.You will hardly find any institution which is offering Linux training. I saw one banner in the city offering training in Linux 9. What is Linux 9? They did not know the basics of Linux. May be they were talking about RD9.Where as you can find countless institutions offering windows training. Is PLUC offering any sort of Linux training or held some seminars on Linux?One of my friends brothers is doing M.Sc in computer sciences at Punjab University. He took Red hat 9 from me saying Punjab University is offering Linux training. I talked to him last night. He said to me that it is not started yet (4 month back he took cds) and may be university led down this course. 3) 1500 members at PLUC. Only 19 members poll at the topic. What are others doing? Are all of them beginners? I saw the members mailing list. I think almost 50% did not even post a single reply, or a single Question. The question remains, how Linux grow in Pakistan.One good thing at least we have a PLUC forum were pep can help beginners and each other.

I think as for as availibility of various distributions is concerned that all depends on peoples requirement because business personal sees the demand of people.
That requires awareness among local comunity through arranging seminars/exhibition and somebody among us have to do that & take first step. NO body from elsewhere will come and make you.
Training/support comes when folks are willing to share their knowledge like we doing here at pluc.
As for as members of pluc are concerned they have devoted themselves but due to certain resons might be some person's are not available.
regards